Title: A hybrid ant colony and simulated annealing algorithm to solve the container stacking problem at seaport terminal

Authors: Riadh Moussi; Jalel Euchi; Adnan Yassine; Ndèye Fatma Ndiaye

Addresses: Faculté des sciences et techniques de Sidi Bouzid, Université de Kairouan, Campus Universitaire cité agricole – 9100 Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia; Laboratoire d'Informatique Signal et Image de la Côte d'opale (LISIC), Maison de la Recherche Blaise Pascal – BP 719 50, rue Ferdinand Buisson, 62228 Calais Cedex, France; Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées du Havre (LMAH), 25 rue Philippe Lebon – BP 540 – 76058 Le Havre Cedex, France ' Laboratoire L.O.G.I.Q.-ISGIS, Université de Sfax, Route de Tunis km 11 – B.P: 1164 – 3018 Sfax, Tunisia ' Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées du Havre (LMAH), Université du Havre, 25 rue Philippe Lebon – BP 540 – 76058 Le Havre Cedex, France ' Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées du Havre (LMAH), Université du havre, 25 rue Philippe Lebon – BP 540 – 76058 Le Havre Cedex, France

Abstract: In this paper, we study the container stacking problem (CSP) which is one of the most important problems in marine terminal. An optimisation model is developed in order to determine the optimal storage strategy for various container-handling schedules. The objective of the model is to minimise the distance between vessel berthing location and the storage positions of containers. The CSP is solved by an efficient hybrid ant colony and simulated annealing (HAC/SA). The performance of the algorithm proposed is verified by a comparison with ILOG CPLEX for small-sized instances. In addition, numerical results for real-sized instances proved the efficiency of the algorithm.

Keywords: container ports; container terminals; container stacking problem; CSP; ant colony optimisation; ACO; simulated annealing; seaport terminals; storage strategy; container handling; handling scheduling; vessel berthing location; container localisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2015.072723

International Journal of Operational Research, 2015 Vol.24 No.4, pp.399 - 422

Received: 13 Feb 2013
Accepted: 07 Oct 2013

Published online: 28 Oct 2015 *

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